With the 30th pick in the NHL Draft, the Canes pick…

Welcome back to the Adam Gold show.

Hayes Permar filling in, Victoria producing the show. As we said, the Canes organization has made a lot of good decisions in the past few years. They've hired the right coach, picked some of the right players, they've not only made it to the playoffs, they've advanced to the second round at least in each of the past five years. And it seems like they made another good decision last night with the 30th overall pick. Next year he'll be playing for the University of Maine, but sometime soon he might be playing for you at PNC.

Actually, you know what? We signed Captain Jordan Stahl to four years this league. Let's go ahead and call this guy Future Canes Captain Bradley Nadeau. Let's do that. Bradley, how are you doing? Thanks for joining us. I'm really good, how are you? I'm doing well. Does Future Canes Captain sound good to you? Is that something that might work out for you?

Oh yeah, that sounds amazing. What were your thoughts when your name was called at the 30th pick of the NHL Draft last night? You know, at first I didn't know what to do, how to act. I was a bit surprised. But to get drafted by such a good organization and a team, I was really happy.

I met with the organization and they're an awesome, awesome people. We're going to talk some more about that, but I also want to probe some more about last night. Alright, so you're sitting there and on paper there's not a lot of difference between picks, say 30th and 34th, but in this instance being picked 30th means you're Thursday night and you'll forever be known as a first round draft pick. And being picked 34th, while still great and amazing and you're obviously a good hockey player, you're not a first round draft pick. Is there a little bit of you as it was getting to the later picks was thinking, man, I'd really like to be a first round draft pick? Yeah, I mean it's a dream for every hockey player and obviously it doesn't matter much when it comes to after the draft, but it was a great honor for me to get drafted first round.

There's something I thought about a little bit as the draft went on, but like I said, it's just the start of the work from here. Bradley Nadeau joining us, he's the Canes first round draft pick, picked 30th overall last night. Alright, I heard you say in interviews last night that you were wide open, any team could have taken you so you were going to go do as much research as you could at that point and learn about Carolina. We did the same about Bradley Nadeau, so before I ask you some of the things I've learned about you, I've got to ask, what have you learned about Carolina in the last 12 hours basically since you got drafted? Well, I didn't have much time to do research. I kind of learned about their players and the full staff there, but that's about it for now. I'll do a bit more research.

I know after the draft it was kind of late last night. We'll set up for the players. You mentioned Seth Jarvis in the interviews, his skating style. Any other Carolina players that you're excited about possibly being teammates with? Yeah, Aho and Shvashnikov are two really good players that hopefully I'll be able to meet in the future.

I think they'll be around for a while, so we'll see if we can make that work out. Alright, it says that you were from St. Francois de Madawaska, and apologies if I mispronounced that. Is that indeed your hometown or is that just something the Wikipedia is saying? No, that's indeed my hometown. Alright, now I wonder if you'll feel me on this because Raleigh, North Carolina is not known for being a hockey town like Boston or Toronto or New York, Chicago.

And I think some of the people who live in those cities, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, they think Raleigh, North Carolina looks like St. Francois de Madawaska. Whereas from my reading, I believe St. Francois is a bit of a smaller town. How big of a town was it that you grew up in?

Yeah, it's a lot smaller. I'd say it's around like 600 people in the town. Is there anything that you can describe the town that indicates how small it was? In the United States we call it a one-horse town or a one-stoplight town. Is there anything to give some scale of how small a town St. Francois is?

I mean, there's no lights there. It's just one road and there's houses on both sides and one hockey ring and that's about it. Very cool. Bradley Nadeau joining us. One thing I saw last night and I've seen about you and I know it's a part of your hockey history as well is how much family means to you.

You will be playing with your brother at Maine and maybe even beyond that. But tell me about your home life growing up. As I understand, you guys ran a farm and everybody was part of the farm chores from a young age. So basically, as good as you are at hockey, you may be able to do everything on the farm just as well.

Do I read that right? Yeah. I mean, growing up, I worked for my grandpa and my dad on the farm and my brother was there. So, yeah, since I was around, I think, eight years old, started working on the farm and kind of spent time with family while working on the farm. So that was something I enjoyed doing.

All right. Play out that side of your story when you come down here. We like guys who grew up on a farm down here in North Carolina. Is there an activity on the farm that like most transcended to a hockey skill? Like, I had to do this all day, but it actually worked out because it made me a better hockey player. Is there a farm to hockey skill? I don't think there would be anything really similar to hockey. But, yeah, I mean, just driving the tractor, I guess, kind of be patient sometime in hockey is good.

So just driving the tractor, it was going slow and doing that all day was something that kind of helped me with my patience. And now that you're the rink, I understood you guys played on a rink, basically, that was in a converted barn on your farm. Now that you and Josh are sort of out and playing hockey out in the world, does your family still maintain the rink or has it served its purpose and they've turned it back to a barn now? No, it's back to a barn now. I mean, we're not at home and my dad just made it for us while we were there, but it helps for storage on the farm. So it truly was just a training facility for you guys growing up, huh?

Yeah. That's pretty cool. And I heard you give credit to your parents, both the time, effort, money, energy they put into helping you attain a professional hockey career. It's pretty cool to see the dedication they put into actually building a rink at your farm.

I also heard that it's a red, that it was quite a journey for you to get to an actual hockey rink. Can you describe what it was like for you to get just to like practices and games and things of that nature from where you were? Yeah, I mean, the first few years there was the home time rink, which was kind of close to home. But after that, for me playing triple A hockey, I had to travel quite a bit.

I think just peewee was like an hour and then a bath and an hour and a half and then midget at the billet already. But it was fun. You know, I met new people along the way, billet families.

And, you know, without those people, I wouldn't be here today. You met Coach Rod Brind'Amour last night. My big question there, did he give you a conditioning workout when you first met him? Or did he even ask you to drop and give him push-ups right now? He's notorious for his conditioning drills. Did he hand you a workout?

No, he hasn't, no. You know, when I just shook his hand and gave me the hat right there, I should have known I had to put the jersey first. But yeah, I had to take back the hat, but he hasn't gave me a conditioning workout or anything whatsoever.

I guarantee you it's coming soon. Maybe he was just being nice. He didn't want to intimidate you and hand it to you. He just gave you the hat and jersey. The conditioning workout is coming soon. What's the biggest strength in your game as a hockey player, Bradley? I think one of my great abilities would be my shot. It's something I use a lot in the game and kind of how I see the ice a little bit. I can slow the game down and help me make plays on the ice. How'd you get good at shooting? How'd you create that good a shot? Just practicing at home on the ice rink we had and just after practice, doing some reps and trying to always get better is kind of how you improve and it's kind of how I help with getting my shot better.

Alright, and what about, I don't want to say biggest weakness, but what's the thing that you think you need to work on the most as you progress in your game? Mountain Dew Zero Sugar asks, ever wonder what it would be like to live in an alternate universe? Well friends, welcome to the alternate universe of Mountain Dew Zero Sugar. Because even though it says zero sugar right there on the bottle, when you crack one open and try it, the taste is nothing less than outrageously delicious. Hey, transport yourself to an alternate universe with Mountain Dew Zero Sugar.

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Do the Dew at Quality Mart. Yeah, obviously I think it's going to be getting stronger and just maybe getting even better defensively. You can never be good enough for that part of the game, so those are two things I kind of want to improve on.

Alright, those sound like two things Rod Brendamore would like to hear any player, like even the strongest, best defensive player on their team, I'm sure Rod Brendamore would like to hear say, I want to get stronger and better at defense. Alright, finally I'm going to give you a couple tips when you come to North Carolina if the Cane staff hasn't told you already. When they ask you about barbecue, don't say it's a sauce, right? Just know that barbecue is an actual thing that we serve. And if they ask you what type you like, just say Eastern.

Okay, so what type of barbecue do you like? You say Eastern. Eastern. Alright. Perfect.

Yes, perfect. Next interview you do, they'll ask that and you can say Eastern. They're going to ask you to pick a team from down here. You know, we're a big college sports area. We love the Canes, but we've got Duke University, the University of North Carolina, and NC State. My advice there, some people try and go, I'm not picking a team, I love all the teams, but that's kind of a wimp way out.

Just go ahead and go with NC State, because that's who the Canes share a building with. It's a little bit easier, same colors, they all wear red. And then finally, I know you already speak two languages. I saw you beautifully perform interviews in English and French. My only thing is, start to work on the word y'all. It's a great word, you can use it many different ways. Y'all. Like, hey, what are y'all doing after practice? Or, hey, I had a great game, I had a terrible game tonight, what about y'all?

It's a great word, so work that into your French and English language. So, what type of barbecue do you like? Eastern. And what's your college team?

I might have to work on that. That's alright, that's alright. NC State or the Wolfpack.

NC State, go pack. And then, what's, I don't know how to ask a question, but work on y'all. What are y'all doing later? Yes! Yes!

Yes! My man, we got you set up. Hey, thank you so much for taking the time. You'll enjoy Raleigh when you get here, enjoy college while you're there, keep getting better, can't wait to see you on the ice at PNC. And congratulations again, it's a humongous achievement to be drafted in the first round of the NHL, and I'm a little biased, but I think you got drafted by a really smart team, so congrats. Thank you.